


chained to the floor, no escape

by bokutoma



Series: i am so bitter, you, so guilty [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anders Positive, Bethany and Carver Hawke Live, Circle Mages, Kinloch Hold, Mage Origin, Mage Rights, Multi, Sex as a Weapon, Surana (Dragon Age) has Issues, Surana (Dragon Age) is not a Warden, Warden Amell (Dragon Age), amell is a dick, anders is a Big Bro, anders's timeline is so fucked up that i'll just do what i want, anti circle propaganda, anti templar, carver is a mage, carver is the baby, everyone would do anything for anders, mage solidarity, those issues being her extreme exasperation with The Boys, you can't stop me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-10 17:36:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: carver hawke is a mage, just like everyone else in his makerdamned family. the difference is simply that he is the only one unlucky - or stupid - enough to be caught. since the age of ten, carver has lived at kinloch hold, and though he's wanted to rot for just about every minute of the last five years, he's found some decent enough friends.there's anders, the boy who immediately took him under his wing, who smells like cinnamon and something a bit sadder, but who's usually good for a laugh.there's karl, anders'....something, who has never been anything but kind, and who is the emotional rock that carver steadies himself on.there's daylen, who, at fifteen, is a bigger asshole than carver could even aspire to be. naturally, they're best friends, even if carver doesn't always understand daylen's secretive behavior.there's neria, who, at seventeen, has half the tower wrapped around her little finger, carver included. everyone, neria included, wishes he wasn't.between jowan's bumbling inadequacy and the looming threat of templar "justice", not to mention his own matchstick temper, carver is walking a fine line between growing up and ending up dead.





	1. cultellus

_Carver stood in the corner of the room, still shaking from the combination of the cold rain and the rough handling of the templars. He was ten years old, and a month ago, he had been at the town fair picking out gifts for his too perfect older sister with her too perfect magic with his just perfect enough twin sister. He had picked three fights by the time they had reached the center of town, and his mother had pulled him from two._

_It was the third, the last fight, that had gotten him into trouble._

_Some stupid boy with a stupid country name like Allen or Davis or Hector had pushed Bethany, called her some name that he hadn't understood. He had_ felt  _the meaning, however, and before he could stop to think, he felt hot rage wash over him, and he punched._

_Except it wasn't with his fist._

_Then the boy was on fire, and his mother had Bethany behind her back. Whether she was hiding her from the association of templars or Carver himself, he didn't know. He just burned, only vaguely aware of the screams around him, until something doused his fire and he collapsed._

* * *

Carver had known she was there a second before she spoke because of her scent.

That would have been a weird thing to admit outside of his own head, probably even to Anders, but he had come to associate the gentle summer delicacy of wildflowers and the acrid tang of deathroot with Neria over the years he had spent with her. It suited her, he thought, a lot of sweetness and something a little deadly. Of course, the thought that followed with filled with significantly more cursing and berating himself for his idiocy.

"What are you doing?" Neria repeated, bracing her arms on the armrests of his chair so she could lean against his back and peer over his shoulder. Carver thought he might be having one of those fits Uldred always threatened to curse apprentices with. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, then decided against that course of action altogether when he got another intoxicating lungful of some plant that made his head spin. He was keeping his fingers crossed that it was just the deathroot.

"Uh, I'm supposed to be studying. Wynne is taking over my lessons for this week, and she's going to be a bitch about it, so..." he trailed off, eyes wide as she shifted so she could sit on the armrest. To balance, she had to wind her arm around his shoulder and lean against his side.

Carver was going to combust.

"You're fairly good at fire-based primal spells, right?" she asked, nose crinkling in concentration.  _Oh Maker, he needed a hobby, to take up knitting or something like it so he didn't pay attention to everything she did._ "Creation spells come from kind of the same place, I find. If you can  _feel_ where they come from, in your mind or your body or wherever you draw from, you should be able to feel it bloom in you, like a flower." At that, she laughed, and Carver had to resist cracking a smile at the sound. "Although I'm not sure flower is the term that will connect with you the most. You're not exactly a delicate lotus blossom."

"I think it's a fairly good comparison. I can be blood lotus. That's dangerous enough for me, isn't it?"

The thing was, he took pride in making Neria laugh,  _really_ laugh. Her whole body shook, and her eyes crinkled up at the corners until they were joyous crescent moons. It was an idiotic thing to think, and Anders would make fun of him for weeks when he confessed his ruminations in the dead of night, but it was how he felt, and if he was honest, he didn't mind sounding around the bend as long as it was about her.

Carver Hawke was fifteen and an absolute Makerdamned fool. 

"What in the Maker is going on here?"

Carver froze, and Neria, in her moment of unguarded jubilation, had to grip his shoulder to prevent herself from tumbling to the floor. It wasn't as if they were doing anything wrong by studying, but if there was one thing that had been imprinted in Carver even before he had been brought to the tower, it was that templars brought nothing but trouble.

Carroll wasn't the most intimidating or the biggest ass, but it didn't matter. Either way, he was a templar with power over them, and if he wanted to get them in trouble, he was more than capable. Currently, with the way he was eyeing Carver in particular, a look of casual malice in his eyes, he didn't like their chances.

Then, of course, Neria worked her magic.

"Oh, Carroll! I feel like I haven't seen you in an age!" she crooned, tilting her whole body forward so that it was facing the knight. 

Carroll blinked, a reddened tint rising to his cheeks. Still, even as he stuttered, he didn't waver from his original purpose. "Oh, um, well, Neria, you're making an awful amount of noise, and it's, uh, private study time..."

She pouted, and Carver was half vindictively proud of her for her easy manipulation and half sympathetic toward the increasingly stilted behavior of the templar. "I didn't mean to, Carroll, you know I wouldn't do that to you," she said, rising from her seat to lean against the table, closer to her victim, and brushed a casual touch along the templar's arm. "I just wanted to help Carver. He needs some work on controlling his creation spells. I didn't realize I was so loud. Forgive me?"

At this point, Carroll was bright red, eyes firmly affixed to Neria's mouth as she bit her lip, the very picture of chastened apology. "Well, uh, as long as you don't do it again, I guess I can be, um, lenient...but there is the matter of your friend there. He's also party to this..."

Carver snorted, and Neria shot him a glare, as if reminding him not to mess up her work, before sliding closer to Carroll. 

"Oh, it's not his fault," she murmured, averting her eyes in feigned deference. "You know how boys can be, all rambunctious before they learn how to be a man like you. If anything, I should know better. Leave him out of it. You can just punish me instead."

_Andraste's holy asshole, she was a mastermind._

A look of pleased understanding rose to Carroll's face, and Carver had to bite back his own resentment as she turned back to him, the self-satisfied grin on her face at odds with her demeanor.

"Run along now, Carver. You can figure out the rest from Wynne." She winked at him, and, sensing his irritation, mouthed the word  _idiot_ for his benefit, subtly gesturing to her prey.

"Thanks, Neria," he whispered, and as Carroll grasped her by the wrist, furtively checking to see if anyone else was watching, she fluttered her fingers in a brief farewell, and, he thought, looked a little sad to see him go.

* * *

 

Anders burst out into the kind of laughter solely reserved for Karl's bad jokes and Carver's idiocy.

_One guess as to the current source._

"Andraste's blessed left eyebrow, Carver, you're absolutely hopeless. It's not as though Neria hasn't been far handsier with you." he choked out, wiping tears from his eyes as he desperately tried to remain quiet. "That's certainly nothing compared to how she is with me!"

Carver scowled. "Actually, she's never been very touchy with me, you bastard. Let me be excited that things are changing."

"Really? She asked me about the size of my cock just last week."

"She did  _what_?"

"Calm down, you wretched mabari," Anders snorted. "It's not like I pulled it out and showed her. She just wanted to know."

" _Why_?" 

If he wasn't so entirely sure Anders was without shame, he would have sworn that the other man blushed. "You would have had to be there for the context of the conversation," he muttered. "Either way, it's probably a good thing she isn't so...charming when she's with you. Shouldn't that mean that she just enjoys talking to you, without wanting anything from you?"

"Didn't you just get through saying that she asked you about your...cock? Besides, maybe I  _want_ her to want something from me."

Anders sighed and waved Carver over from his position on his bed down to the corner where he was hunched, hidden from the prying eyes of tattling apprentices and wretched templars. He slid over as Carver folded himself in beside him and sighed contemplatively.

"Carver, I-"

He slammed his hand against the wall, suddenly petulant. "Anders, don't tell me that I should get over it! I may be a mage and I may be young, but that doesn't mean that I don't deserve a chance to find out for myself whether or not I can have the opportunity to get what I want. I'm not lesser than  _anyone,_ and I deserve this much!"

Anders, infuriatingly, just grinned.

" _Don't think of me as lesser!_ " he hissed, still barely conscious of the sleeping apprentices around them. 

"Do you realize who you're speaking to?" Anders whispered, barely suppressed laughter coloring his voice. "Do you really think that  _I_ would encourage you to get over your feelings, be a good little mage and shut up?"

Carver simply sat silently, chastened.

"Hardly. All I was going to say was that I get what you're feeling. You asked me why she asked me such a seemingly personal question, but you're not taking into account who we are as people. Neria is my friend, not to mention at least a year out from me even possibly seeing her in a sexual way. We both just happen to be people who, due to the way we are and the circumstances of our lives, like to talk about absolutely meaningless things. If anything, you should be celebrating the fact that she doesn't flirt with you. She knows you, knows that you aren't the most casual and open with your affection, so she responds in kind. You clearly aren't a part of her diabolical plan to bring the whole Maker forsaken tower to its knees before her, or she would have used you by now."

He sighed, wanting to say something,  _anything,_ whether in refutation or agreement, but he found himself without anything to say.

"I'll let you sleep on it," Anders said, his voice soft as he unfolded himself from the corner, "Just remember, Hawkelet, whether she sees you as a brother or a potential lover, she  _sees_ you, and isn't that loads better than that fucking idiot Carroll?"

Carver laugh tiredly, collapsing onto his bed as Anders slunk around the corner. "Thanks," he whispered into the darkness.

"Any time."


	2. puer regem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an introduction to kinloch's prodigy, the biggest asshole in the entire tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to my friend shae for reading this and telling me it isn't shit! much appreciated

_"Is this the one that you wrote about?" the man asked, gesturing to Carver without even looking at him. Normally, he absolutely hated being ignored, but this time, he stayed silent, intuitively sensing that he didn't want to be on the radar of this man, with his gray hair and hardened aura of authority. "The one that nearly sent a boy in flames?"_

_"Yes, sir," responded the most vocal of the templars that had brought him. "Almost caught about a dozen other people in the blaze too."_

_"I wouldn't go that far," said another, his eyes the kindest out of everyone's. Carver had learned he had a weakness for children, and had tried to use that to his advantage for extra food on the ride to the tower. "From what I saw, the other boy was being aggressive. He clearly was just reacting. I doubt there was any malintent other than to land a punch or two."_

_"Malice is malice and should not be tolerated, especially when dealing with a mage."  
_

_"He's a_ boy-"

 _"Silence." T_ _he words weren't especially loud, but they rang with command, causing a hush to fall among the bickering templars. "He is here, he is a mage, and_ yes,  _he is just a boy, so we shall remain aware of his fits of temper while he undergoes training."_

_"Yes, Knight-Commander."_

* * *

"Maker's ass, Carver, you really  _are_ awful at creation spells. I thought Wynne was exaggerating when she came storming in to complain to the room at large, but you couldn't even heal a papercut."

"Keep quiet, you ass. You nearly set a templar's clothes on fire last time you practiced a fireball."

"The difference between us that I did it on purpose. You're just terrible."

Carver shot his friend a foul look, gesturing rudely before attempting another healing spell. When it fizzled out without much effect for the third time in a row, Daylen howled with laughter, hand covering his eyes as he fell back against the wall as if to shield him from the other's inadequacy. 

"Once I get Uldred to teach me that spell he always threatens us with, you're going to be my test subject," Carver grumbled. "Didn't Neria tell you to help, not bother me while I'm trying to focus?"

"You're absolutely hopeless. I'll never have to worry about that coming to fruition. If he won't even teach  _me,_ what are the chances of him teaching  _you?"_

"You're Irving's pet, so there's no way he'll teach you," Carver argued.

"Fine, then. We'll get Neria to fuck it out of him, if she doesn't already know it. Maker knows that man could use some loosening up."

"Don't talk about her like that."

Daylen grew silent, and as much as Carver would have liked to believe that it was because of his superior physical strength as well as the point he made, he knew better. The gleam in his friend's eyes told him otherwise, as well as the sly smile that threatened to tug at his mouth.

Fuming, Carver went back to his attempts at creation spells, attempting to recall what Neria had said a few days ago before Carroll had interrupted them. Something about feeling it in the same place his primal spells came from, but that made little sense to him. One was to create, the other to destroy. As far as he could remember, he had only ever been good at the latter. 

"You should give up on Neria."

He whirled to face Daylen, a thousand bitter retorts already on his tongue, but they all died at the look on his friend's face. Unlike his usual cunning wit, his eyes were dead serious, his face devoid of anything but conviction. "Why?" he asked, the words sour on his tongue.

"You're sensitive, Carver," Daylen said, shrugging. "Don't give me that look. When it comes to love, you're a romantic. Neria can't and won't give you what you want. You think she'll stop because you tell her you love her? Even if she said she felt the same, she will do what she must to survive, as must we all. You might say you understand, but if you think seeing her seduce other men is a problem for you now, imagine how you would feel then."

It made sense, of course, because Daylen was never wrong unless it was on purpose, but Carver still felt the need to rebel. "I would understand! I don't think less of her now, and I never have. She's just doing what she has to."

"You're a good man, Carver. Maybe things would work for you two outside the Circle." Daylen sighed. "I wish you had that option."

That was all he would say on the matter, regardless of how Carver tried to argue. He had spoken his mind, and would say no more.

* * *

When Carver saw Neria next, she was sitting on the ledge outside of the library, face seven shades of bruised, and Karl stood over her with a mixed look of worry and concentration so intense that he was suddenly, inexplicably reminded of his family and his old home.

"Maker's ass, what happened?" he cried, rushing forward.

Neria grinned, but there was no spark in her gray eyes, and she looked tired. "I went a round with the old templar who usually supervises the battlemages. I would say that you should see him, but apparently Greagoir is writing his transfer papers as we speak. He's been harassing the daughter of some minor lord as well, so it turns out my luck is intact after all."

"Not much else about you is," Karl retorted tartly, his eyebrows creased in irritation. "He assaulted you for not getting to have a round in the barracks. You're playing a dangerous game."

"Everything is dangerous here, Karl," she replied, and as much as Carver wanted to argue, he found he couldn't when she presented it that way.

Instead, he settled on a muttered curse and took up post at her side, eyes hardened into a glare that might even scare off a templar. "Where's Anders? Shouldn't he be healing you?"

"I've been given sanction to do so," Karl replied. "Irving thought it best if Anders didn't see her with the majority of the damage."

Carver snorted. "Not like it will do much good."

Neria laughed tiredly, grasping him by the arm and tugging him closer. Normally, she wouldn't have been able to do much, considering the difference in their size and stature, but Carver was thrown so off guard by her touch that he stumbled into her. "Karl, let Carver heal me," she said, her normally musical voice airy with exhaustion. "It will be good practice."

"Is this really the time-"

"Are you joking?" Carver asked. "You know I don't know how to do it. I spent all day practicing and I couldn't get anything to happen. I don't want to end up hurting you or making things worse."

"I have faith in you," she said simply.

"Neria," Karl tried. "He hit you pretty hard. He might have even fractured something. Just let me do this."

"One injury. That's all I'm asking for." Her grip slid from Carver's forearm to his wrist. "I have faith that he won't hurt me."

Carver could do nothing but stand, mouth slightly parted in surprise, as she brought his hand to cover the swollen purple bruise on her cheek. Small lacerations dotted it, likely from the scrape of leather gloves. It was lucky that he hadn't been in full armor, or her injuries could have been much worse.

"You know where it comes from," she said, bringing her other hand to rest against the center of his chest. "I believe in you."

He had never wanted to protect anyone more.

A burst of light washed from his fingers, and he started in surprise. Neria merely smiled as it faded, the swelling in her cheek having receded.

"Well, damn," Karl said dryly. "Color me impressed."

Neria was still smiling at him, and Carver's cheeks darkened as he realized that she had been the source of his improvement. "I..." He cleared his throat. "I'll go grab some dinner for you two while you finish," he said, eyes fixed firmly on Karl. "Uh....good luck."

As he sped away, he could hear the low tones of Karl's voice and Neria's soft laugh, and he thought maybe Daylen could be wrong for once after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit me up on tumblr @alistcir! i enjoy shitposting about my beautiful blond boys mostly, but i will rag on carver for however long you want me to.


	3. contumax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now that everyone's introduced, it's the anders show!

_"So this is our new brother in the Tower," rumbled the low tones of yet another unfamiliar man. "Carver, was it? A strong name."_

_"I don't care about your opinion," he retorted, tired and petulant. For ages, he had not been allowed to speak, whether by explicit instruction or fear, and this boiled and flowed over in a hot wave of anger directed at this new man, all gray beard and scholarly hands, while the other had been rigid military precision and weathered rock face. "I just want to sleep."_

_The man chuckled, drawing back from him not as though he were a danger, but as if he had been studied and memorized, no longer a curiosity. "I'm sure my friend here can show you the dormitories, can't you, Daylen?"_

_A boy roughly the same age as Carver emerged from the background, where he had been lounging until his introduction. "Certainly," he said, sounding polished despite the strange country tones to his words._ Northern,  _Carver thought, though he had little idea of what that meant. Something about him looked familiar, though whether it was the slightly crooked angle of his nose or the sharp line of his jaw, he couldn't tell. He was thin, though not gaunt, which boded well for his meals, at least, and that was just about the most important thing. For one fleeting second, he imagined waiting until he and this new boy were alone, then grasping him by the braid in his shoulder length brown hair and pummeling him until he could not follow, then fleeing this Maker forsaken place._

_The other boy's eyes bored into him, and though he wore a smile, Carver felt a chill run down his spine._

_Perhaps that plan was out, then._

_"Run along, now," the old man said. "We want to get him all settled before dinner."_

_"Yes, First Enchanter," the other boy - Daylen - said, still wearing that hauntingly pleasant smile. "With pleasure."_

* * *

It was three days after Neria had been fully healed, thanks to Karl, and Anders still wouldn't shut up about it. 

"You'd think that if anyone was going to bring it up and bitch about it at every available opportunity, it would be me," Carver said, cutting Anders off midway through another rant about templar abuse. It wasn't as though he didn't agree with him wholeheartedly - even before any injury had ever come to Neria, he had thought all templars were right bastards - but there was a time and a place to rail against them, and the middle of the library in the early afternoon was neither.

"Not Neria?" Anders asked, one eyebrow arched in question. 

"She doesn't waste time lamenting," he replied ruefully. "She just gets things done."

"Fair enough." Anders tilted back in his seat with all the insouciance a man his age should have,  _would_ have, outside of the Circle. If Carver squinted, he could picture the elder in a tavern somewhere, knocking back a drink or two with the other unsavory patrons - a fragment of one of his friend's escape attempts, a tale told in the darkness to ward away the demons in plate armor just outside. "It's either that or hear me gush about Karl, though."

"Fair enough," Carver echoed. "What a sad pair we are."

"True. I've half a mind to just tug the man into a closet, hoist up his robes, and have at him, but I've still got some decency. I think you're my moral compass."

"And  _I_ think that's the first time anyone has equated me with morals."

"I think Karl is the only one of us who even knows what the word means," said another voice. Carver jumped about out of his skin at the sound, Anders cackling in glee all the while. Daylen emerged into view, where he had before been hidden. How long he had been there, Carver didn't know, nor did he care to find out. His friend had an eerie ability to blend in and stand out at will. 

"Fuck you," Carver breathed, chest heaving with the effort of recovery. "Are you sure you're not a templar rogue or something, sent to put me in an early grave?"

"it would be doing us all a favor," Daylen deadpanned. "Also, I'd like you both to know that I've convinced about half of the infants that Carver's a templar who gets off at the idea of being a mage, so expect that rumor to be circulating in the near future."

Carver swung at him, though he knew he had no hope of connecting. When they had first met, he had managed to get a few good hits in, but after a while, Daylen had adapted, and no matter how he varied his approach, the other always knew where the next blow would land. 

Void take him, his best friend was  _irritating._

"As good as that is, you're taking the attention off of me and my love life," Anders drawled.

"Which one? The one that doesn't exist?"

This time, Anders shot as subtle of a spell as he could manage at the boy, one that grazed him and collapsed into flame on the ground.

"Better than Carver, at least, and he's supposed to be good at primal spells."

"Shut up, ass."

"Get some, and maybe you'll feel better," Anders snorted.

Maker, this place was  _torture._

* * *

"Dinner plans are canceled," Daylen said, lounging on the bed of one of the new apprentices as Carver came into the room. "Anders almost got caught sneaking the food out to us, so Neria distracted the templar on duty, Bran or something like that, until he left. Naturally, that means she's still tangled up with him, although maybe not literally. She just got him talking about himself, and Maker, it's like the man has never gotten attention from a pretty woman before. Considering the fact that he's enlisted in Chantry service, he probably hasn't."

"I dunno. There are some nice looking initiates."

Daylen gasped mockingly. "Carver Hawke, acknowledging that there are women other than Neria? Unthinkable." He snorted. "Also, I know. I've had a couple in my time."

"Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just-"

"Oh, shut up!" Daylen said, a lopsided smirk coming to his face. "I respect your decision to chase after something hopeless, so let me pursue my equally unreasonable dream to be a whore in Denerim."

Against his best attempts, a snort escaped Carver. "Now you're just making fun of me," he said, flopping down on the bed opposite Daylen and rummaging for some treats. "Piss and vinegar, did you already take all the sweets for yourself?"

"Rummage around. I'm sure I missed a cake slice or two."

"Bastard!"

"Such language. I'm appalled."

With a huff of laughter, Carver lobbed a piece of fruit at Daylen, who merely grinned and caught it, popping it in his mouth. 

All in all, not the worst way to spend a night, even if he did have to endure merciless teasing.

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to a-blue-bubble on tumblr for the idea for this!! 
> 
> come visit me on tumblr for that good shitpost content @alistcir


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